Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang says Arsenal are ready to face Manchester City when the Premier League restarts next week, although he’s not sure what impact playing in front of an empty stadium will have.
“I don’t know if it will be harder or easier [behind closed doors],” Aubameyang said during a club charity fundraising event.
“But the only thing for sure I know is that they are a great team and it will be hard for sure, we don’t expect it to be easier because of no fans in the stadium. We will try our best and the positive thing that I saw is that all the players in our team are in shape and are feeling well, with a lot of power and a lot of freshness.”
Arsenal continued their preparations with a thumping six-nil win over Charlton at the weekend in which Eddie Nketiah scored a hattrick.
The match against City is Arsenal’s game in hand and is being played first in case disaster strikes and the league has to be cancelled. At least that way, all clubs will have played the same number of games and a PPG average could be used.
That, of course, is far from ideal.
Arsenal were super crap under Unai Emery for the first half of the season and there is every reason to believe the remaining games will go far better under Mikel Arteta than they would under Emery. That should mean more points.
Anyway, it is what it is and given what else is happening all over the world, this seems like the least of our concerns.
Ahead of the league’s return, Arsenal sit in ninth place, five points behind United in fifth and eight behind Chelsea in fourth.
A one-nil win over City would see Arsenal move above Tottenham and Sheffield United into seventh place but they would need to win by three goals to move above Wolves into sixth.